HISTORY OF ZEN BUDDHISM FROM BODHI-DHARMA TO HUI-NENG (YENO) (520 A.D.–713 A.D.) (continued 2)

He died in A.D. 706, seven years prior to Hui-nêng. His school known as the Northern in contrast to Hui-nêng’s Southern School prospered in the north far better than the latter did in the south. But when Ma-tsu (died 788) and Shih-t‘ou (700–790) began their active propaganda in the south and finally established the foundations of Zen teaching, Shên-hsiu’s school failed to find able successors and finally disappeared altogether so that all the records we have of their movements come from the rival school. It thus came to pass that Hui-nêng, and not Shên-hsiu was recognised as the sixth patriarch of Zen Buddhism in China.

The difference between the Southern and the Northern school of Zen is one inherent in human mind; if we call the one intellectual or intuitional, the other would be regarded as pragmatical. The reason why the Southern school is known as “abrupt” or “instant” (yugapad) against the “gradual” (kramavṛittya) school of the North is because it upholds that the coming of enlightenment is instantaneous and does not allow any gradation, as there are no stages of progress in it; whereas the Northern school emphasises the process of arriving at enlightenment which is naturally gradual, requiring much time and concentration. Hui-nêng was a great advocate of absolute idealism, while Shên-hsiu was a realist and refused to ignore a world of particulars where Time rules over all our doings. An idealist does not necessarily ignore the objective aspect of reality, but his eyes are always fixed at one point which stands by itself, and his surveyings are done from this absolute point. The doctrine of abruptness is thus the result of looking at the multitudinousness of things in absolute unity. All true mystics are followers of the “abrupt” school. The flight from the alone to the alone is not and cannot be a gradual process. The teaching of Shên-hsiu is to be heeded as the practical advice to those who are actually engaged in the study of Zen, but it fails to describe the character of experience known as “the seeing into one’s own Nature,” which was the special message of Hui-nêng as distinguished from those of the other Buddhist schools. That the school of Shên-hsiu could not survive as a branch of Zen was natural enough, for Zen could not be anything else but an instantaneous act of intuition. As it opens up all of a sudden a world hitherto undreamed of, it is an abrupt and discrete leaping from one plane of thought to another. Hsiu missed the ultimate object of Zen when he emphasised the process to reach the end. As a practical adviser he was therefore excellent and full of merit.

The ideas of instantaneity and gradation in the realisation of the truth of Zen originally comes from the Laṅkāvatāra (Nanjo’s edition, p. 55), where this distinction is made in regard to cleansing one’s mind of its stream of ideas and images. According to the Sutra, this cleansing is in one sense gradual but in another abrupt or instantaneous. When it is regarded as like the ripening of a fruit, the modelling of a vessel, the growing of a plant, or the mastering of an art, which takes place gradually and in time, it is an act of gradual process: but when it is comparable to a mirror reflecting objects, or to the Ālaya reproducing all mental images, the cleansing of mind takes place instantaneously. Thus the Sutra recognises the two types of minds: with some the cleansing to a state of enlightenment can be obtained gradually after a long practice of meditation, perhaps through many a successive life; but to others it may come all of a sudden, even without previously conscious efforts. The division of the two schools as regards the abrupt realisation of enlightenment is based not only on the statements in the Sutra but ultimately on facts of psychology. The point at issue however was not a question of time; whether enlightenment took place as an act of one moment or not, ceased to concern them; for the difference now developed into that of their general philosophical attitude and outlook towards the fact of enlightenment itself. The question of physical time has thus turned into that of psychology in its more profound aspect.

When process is emphasised, the end is forgotten, and process itself comes to be identified with end. When a disciple of Shên-hsiu came to Hui-nêng to be instructed in Zen, he asked what was the teaching of Shên-hsiu, and the disciple informed him thus: “My master usually teaches us to stop the working of our minds and to sit quietly in meditation for a long time at a stretch, without lying down.” To this Hui-nêng responded: “To stop the working of mind and to sit quietly in meditation is a disease and not Zen, and there is no profit whatever to be gained from a long sitting.” Then he gave him the following gāthā:

This shows exactly where Hui-nêng stands in relation to his rival Shên-hsiu who is so taken up with the practical details of the process of Zen. Those two gāthās inscribed on the monastery wall at Yellow-plum Mountain while they were yet under the tutorship of Hung-jên, are eloquent enough to bring out the characteristic features of the two schools.f101

When Hui-nêng further asked the monk from the north as to the teaching of his teacher in regard to morality (śīla), meditation (dhyāna), and wisdom (prajñā), the monk said, “According to my master Hsiu, morality consists in not doing anything that is bad; wisdom in reverently practising all that is good; and meditation in purifying the heart.” Replied Hui-nêng: “My view is quite different. All my teaching issues from the conception of Self-Nature, and those who assert the existence of anything outside it betray their ignorance of its nature. Morality, Meditation, and Wisdom—all these are forms of Self-Nature. When there is nothing wrong in it, we have morality; when it is free from ignorance, it is wisdom; and when it is not disturbed, it is meditation. Have a thorough understanding once for all as to the being of Self-Nature, and you know that nothing dualistic obtains in it; for here you have nothing to be particularly distinguished as enlightenment, or ignorance, or deliverance, or knowledge, and yet from this nothingness there issues a world of particulars as objects of thought. For him who has once had an insight into his own Nature, no special posture as a form of meditation is to be recommended; everything and anything is good to him, sitting, or lying, or standing. He enjoys perfect freedom of spirit, he moves along as he feels, and yet he does nothing wrong, he is always acting in accord with his Self-Nature, his work is play. This is what I call ‘the seeing into one’s own Nature’; and this seeing is instantaneous as much as the working is, for there is no graduating process from one stage to another.”

VI

Some of the sermons of the sixth patriarch are preserved in the book known as the Platform Sutra on the Treasure of the Law (Fa-pao-t‘an-ching). The title, “sutra” has generally been given to writings ascribed to the Buddha or those somehow personally connected with him, and that a collection of the sermons of Hui-nêng has been so honoured shows what a significant position he occupies in the history of Chinese Buddhism. “The Platform Sutra” has a reference to the famous ordination platform erected by Gunabhadra, the first translator of the Laṅkāvatāra, of the Liu-sung dynasty, A.D. 420–479. At the time of the erection as well as later, it was prophesied by Chih-yüeh (according to another authority by Paramārtha), during the Liang dynasty that some years later a Bodhisattva in the flesh would be ordained on this platform and deliver sermons on the Buddha’s “spiritual seal.” Thus the “Platform Sutra” means the orthodox teaching of the Zen given from this platform.

The sermons here preserved are mere fragments of those delivered during the thirty-seven years of Hui-nêng’s active missionary life. Even of these fragments how much is to be regarded as genuine and authoritative is a question we cannot at present give any definite answer, as the book seems to have suffered the vicissitudes of fates, partly showing the fact that the Zen message of the sixth patriarch was extraordinary in many respects so as to arouse antagonism and misunderstanding among Buddhists. When this antagonism later reached its climax, it is reported that the book was burned up as against the genuine teaching of Buddhism. Except a few sentences and passages, however, which can at once be rejected as spurious, we may take the Platform Sutra on the whole as expressing the spirit and teaching of the sixth patriarch of Zen.

The principal ideas of Hui-nêng, which make him the real Chinese founder of Zen Buddhism may be summed up as follows:

1. We can say that Zen has come to its own consciousness by Hui-nêng. While Bodhi-Dharma brought it from India and successfully transplanted it in China, it did not fully realise its special message at the time. More than two centuries were needed before it grew aware of itself and knew how to express itself in the way native to the Chinese mind; the Indian mode in which its original teaching had been expressed as was the case with Bodhi-Dharma and his immediate disciples had to give way as it were to become truly Chinese. As soon as this transformation or transplantation was accomplished in the hands of Hui-nêng, his disciples proceeded at once to work out all its implications. The result was what we have as the Zen school of Buddhism. How did then Hui-nêng understand Zen?

According to him, Zen was the “seeing into one’s own Nature.” This is the most significant phrase ever coined in the development of Zen Buddhism. Around this Zen is now crystallised, and we know where to direct our efforts and how to represent it in our consciousness. After this, the progress of Zen Buddhism was rapid. It is true that this phrase occurs in the life of Bodhi-Dharma in the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, but it is in the part of his life on which we cannot put much reliance. Even when the phrase was actually used by Dharma, it was not necessarily considered by him the essence of Zen as distinguishing itself from other schools of Buddhism. Hui-nêng however was fully aware of its signification, and impressed the idea unequivocally upon the minds of his audience. When he made his first declaration of Zen for the benefit of Yin-tsung, the statement was quite unmistakable, “We talk of seeing into our own Nature, and not of practising dhyana or obtaining liberation.”[4.56] Here we have the gist of Zen, and all his later sermons are amplifications of this idea.

By “Nature” he understood Buddha-Nature, or more particularly from the intellectual point of view, Prajñā. He says that this Prajñā is possessed by every one of us, but owing to the confusion of thought we fail to realise it in ourselves. Therefore we must be instructed and properly guided by an adept in Zen Buddhism, when we shall open a spiritual eye and by ourselves see into the Nature. This Nature knows no multiplicity, it is absolute oneness, being the same in the ignorant as well as in the wise. The difference comes from confusion and ignorance. People talk so much, think so much, of Prajñā, but fail altogether to realise it in their own minds. It is like talking about food all day, however much we may talk we forever remain hungry. You may explain the philosophy of Śūnyatā for ten thousand years, but so long as you have not yet seen into your Nature, it is absolutely of no avail. There are again some people who regard Zen as consisting in sitting quietly with an empty mind devoid of thoughts and feelings. Such know not what Prajñā is, what Mind is. It fills the universe and never rests from work. It is free, creative, and at the same time it knows itself. It knows all in one and one in all. This mysterious working of Prajñā issues from your own Nature. Do not depend upon letters but let your own Prajñā illumine within yourself.

2. The inevitable result of it was the “abrupt” teaching of the Northern school. The seeing is an instant act as far as the mental eye takes in the whole truth at one glance—the truth which transcends dualism in all form; it is abrupt as far as it knows no gradations, no continuous unfolding. Read the following passage from the Platform Sutra, in which the essentials of the abrupt doctrine are given:

“When the abrupt doctrine is understood, there is no need of disciplining oneself in things external. Only let a man always have a right view within his own mind, no desires, no external objects will ever defile him. This is the seeing into his Nature. O my friends, have no fixed abode inside or outside,f102 and your conduct will be perfectly free and unfettered. Take away your attachment, and your walk will know no obstructions whatever.... The ignorant will grow wise if they abruptly get an understanding and open their hearts to the truth. O my friends, even the Buddhas will be like us common mortals when they have no enlightenment, and even we mortals will be Buddhas when we are enlightened. Therefore we know that all things are in our own minds. Why do we not then instantly see into our own minds and find there the truth of Suchness? In the Sutra on the Moral Conduct of the Bodhisattva we read that we are all pure in our Self-nature, and that when we know our own minds we see into this Nature and all attain to Buddhahood. Says the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, ‘An instant opening leads us into the Original Mind.’ O my good friends, while under my master Jên, I realised the truth the moment I heard him speak and had an instant [i.e. abrupt] glimpse into the true essence of Suchness. This is the reason why I now endeavour by means of this doctrine to lead truth-seekers to an instant [i.e. abrupt] realisation of Bodhi. When you by yourselves look into your minds, you perceive at once what the Original Nature is....

“Those who know by themselves do not look for anything external. If they adhere to the view that liberation comes through external aid, through the office of a good wise friend, they are entirely at fault. Why? There is a knower in your own mind and it is this that makes you realise the truth by yourselves. When confusion reigns in you and false views are entertained, no amount of teaching by others, good wise friends of yours, will be of use for your salvation. When on the other hand your genuine Prajñā shines forth, all your confused thoughts will vanish in an instant. Knowing thus what your Self-Nature is, you reach Buddhahood by this single understanding, one knowledge.”

3. When the seeing into Self-Nature is emphasised and intuitive understanding is upheld against learning and philosophising, we know that as one of its logical conclusions the old view of meditation begins to be looked down as merely a discipline in mental tranquillisation. And this was exactly the case with the sixth patriarch. Since the beginning of Buddhism there have been two currents of thought concerning the meaning of meditation: the one was, like Arāda and Udraka who were the two teachers of the Buddha, to take it for suspending all psychic activities or for wiping consciousness clean of all its modes; and the other was to regard meditation simply as the most efficacious means for coming in touch with the ultimate reality. This fundamental difference of views with regard to meditation was a cause of the unpopularity at first of Bodhi-Dharma among the Chinese Buddhists, scholars and dhyana-masters of the time. It was also a factor of divergence between the Niu-t‘ou school of Zen and the orthodox teaching of the fourth patriarch, as well as between the Northern and the Southern school of Zen Buddhism after the fifth patriarch. Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, came out as a strong advocate of intuitionalism and refused to interpret the meaning of dhyana statically, as it were. For the Mind according to him at the highest stage of meditation was not a mere being, mere abstraction devoid of content and work. He wanted to grasp something which lay at the foundation of all his activities mental and physical, and this something could not be a mere geometrical point, it must be the source of energy and knowledge. Hui-nêng did not forget that the will was after all the ultimate reality and that enlightenment was to be understood as more than intellection, more than quietly contemplating the truth. The Mind or Self-Nature was to be apprehended in the midst of its working or functioning. The object of dhyana was thus not to stop the working of Self-Nature but to make us plunge right into its stream and seize it in the very act. His intuitionalism was dynamic. In the following dialogues both Hui-nêng and his disciples are still using the older terminology but the import of this parley is illustrative of the point I want to specify.

Hsüan-chiao first studied T‘ien-tai philosophy and later while reading the Vimalakīrti he discovered his Self-Nature. Being advised to see the sixth patriarch in order to have his experience certified or testified, he came to Tsao-ch‘i. He walked around the master three times and erecting his staff straight stood before him. Said the master, “Monks are supposed to observe three hundred rules of conduct and eighty thousand minor ones; whence comest thou, so full of pride?”

“Birth-and-death is a matter of grave concern, and time waits for nobody!” said the T‘ien-tai philosopher.

“Why dost thou not grasp that which is birthless and see into that which is timeless?” the master demanded.

“Birthless is that which grasps, and timeless is that which sees into.”

“That is so, that is so,” agreed the master.

When this was over, Hsüan-chiao came to Hui-nêng again in the full attire of the Buddhist monk, and reverently bowing to the master wished to take leave of him.

Said the master, “Why departest thou so soon?”

“There is from the very beginning no such thing as movement, and then why talkest thou of being soon?”

“Who knows that there is no movement?” retorted the master.

“There,” exclaimed Hsüan-chiao, “thou makest a judgment thyself!”

“Thou truly comprehendest the intent of that which is birthless.”

“How could the birthless ever have an intent?” Hsüan-chiao asked.

“If there were no intent, who could ever judge?”

“Judgments are made with no intent whatever.” This was the conclusion of Chiao.

The master then expressed his deep appreciation of Hsüan-chiao’s view on the subject, saying, “Well thou hast said!”[4.57]

Chih-huang was an adept in meditation which he studied under the fifth patriarch. After twenty years’ discipline he thought he well understood the purport of meditation or samadhi. Hsüan-ts‘ê, learning his attainment, visited him and said, “What are you doing there?” “I am entering into a samadhi.” “You speak of entering, but how do you enter into samadhi—with a thought-ful mind or with a thought-less mind? If you say with a thought-less mind, all non-sentient beings such as plants or bricks could attain samadhi. If you say with a thought-ful mind, all sentient beings could attain it.” “When I enter into samadhi,” said Chih-huang, “I am not conscious of either being thoughtful or being thoughtless.” “If you are conscious of neither, you are right in samadhi all the while; why do you then talk at all of entering into it or coming out of it? If however there is really entering or coming out, it is not Great Samadhi.” Chih-huang did not know how to answer. After a while he asked who was Hsüan-ts‘ê’s teacher and what was his understanding of samadhi. Said Hsüan-ts‘ê,[4.58] “Hui-nêng is my teacher, and according to him, [the ultimate truth] lies mystically serene and perfectly quiet; substance and function are not to be separated, they are of one Suchness. The five skandhas are empty in their nature, and the six sense-objects have no reality. [The truth knows of] neither entering nor going out, neither being tranquil nor disturbed. Dhyana in essence has no fixed abode. Without attaching yourself to an abode, be serene in dhyana. Dhyana in essence is birthless; without attaching yourself to the thought of birth [-and-death] think in dhyana. Have your mind like unto space and yet have no thought of space.” Thus learning of the sixth patriarch’s view on samadhi or dhyana, Chih-huang came to the master himself and asked to be further enlightened. Said the patriarch, “What Hsüan-ts‘ê told you is true. Have your mind like unto space and yet entertain in it no thought of emptiness. Then the truth will have its full activity unimpeded. Every movement of yours will come out of an innocent heart and the ignorant and the wise will have an equal treatment in your hands. Subject and object will lose their distinction, and essence and appearance will be of one suchness. [When a world of absolute oneness is thus realised,] you have attained to eternal samadhi.”

To make the position of the sixth patriarch on the subject of meditation still clearer and more definite, let me quote another incident from his Platform Sutra. A monk once made reference to a gāthā composed by Wo-luan which read as follows [4.59]:

Hearing this, the sixth patriarch remarked: “That is no enlightenment but leads one into a state of bondage. Listen to my gāthā:

These will be sufficient to show that Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, was on the one hand no quietist, nor nihilist advocating the doctrine of absolute emptiness, while on the other hand he was no idealist either, in the sense of denying an objective world. His dhyana was full of action, yet above a world of particulars, so long as it was not carried away by it and in it.

4. Hui-nêng’s method of demonstrating the truth of Zen was purely Chinese and not Indian. He did not resort to abstract terminology nor to romantic mysticism. The method was direct, plain, concrete, and highly practical. When the monk Ming came to him and asked for instruction, he said, “Show me your original face before you were born.” Is not the statement quite to the point? No philosophic discourse, no elaborate reasoning, no mystic imagery, but a direct unequivocal dictum. In this the sixth patriarch cut the first turf and his disciples quickly and efficiently followed in his steps. Notice how brilliantly Lin-chi made use of this method in his sermon on a “true man of no title.” (See the “Introduction.”)

To give another instance. When Hui-nêng saw Huai-jang, of Nan-yüeh, he said, “Whence comest thou?” which was followed by “What is it that so cometh?”[4.60] It took for Huai-jang eight long years to answer the question satisfactorily. Afterwards this way of questioning became almost an established form of greeting with Zen masters. Nan-yüan asked a newly arrived monk, “Whence comest thou?” “I am from Han-shang.” Said the master, “You are at fault as much as I am.”[4.61] Hsiang-yên asked San-shêng, “Whence comest thou?” “From Lin-chi.” “Bringest thou his sword?” San-shêng took up his seat-cloth (tso-chu) and struck Hsiang-yên across his mouth and went away.[4.62] The Venerable Ch‘en asked a monk, “Whence comest thou?” “From Yang-shan.” “Thou art a liar!” was the verdict of the master.[4.63] Another time he asked another monk, “Whence comest thou?” “From West of the River, sir.” “How many sandals hast thou worn out?” This monk had evidently a gentler treatment.

This difference of method between the Indian and the Chinese often raised the question as to the difference, if there be, between the “Tathagata Dhyana” and the “Patriarchal Dhyana.” For instance, when Hsiang-yên showed his song of poverty to Yang-shan, the latter said, “You understand the Tathagata Dhyana but not yet the Patriarchal Dhyana.” When asked about the difference, Mu-chou replied, “The green mountains are green mountains, and the white clouds are white clouds.”[4.64]

VII

Hui-nêng died at the age of seventy-six in A.D. 712, while the T‘ang dynasty was enjoying its halcyon days and Chinese culture reached the highest point in its history. A little over one hundred years after the passing of the sixth patriarch, Liu Tsung-yüan, one of the most brilliant literati in the history of Chinese literature, wrote a memorial inscription on his tomb-stone when he was honoured by the Emperor Hsien-tsung with the posthumous title, Great Mirror (tai-chien),and in this we read[4.65]: “In a sixth transmission after Dharma there was Tai-chien. He was first engaged in menial labour and servile work. Just a few words from the master were enough and he at once understood the deepest meaning conveyed in them. The master was greatly impressed and finally conferred on him an insignia of faith. After that he hid himself in the southern district, nobody heard of him again for sixteen years when he thought the time was ripe for him to come out of the seclusion. He was settled at Ts‘ao-ch‘i and began to teach. The number of disciples is said once to have reached several thousands. According to his doctrine, non-doing is reality, emptiness is the truth, and the ultimate meaning of things is vast and immovable. He taught that human nature in its beginning as well as in the end is thoroughly good and does not require any artificial weeding-out, for it has its root in that which is serene. The Emperor Chung-tsung heard of him and sent his courtier twice asking him to appear at Court but failed to get him out. So the Emperor had his words instead which he took for his spiritual guidance. The teaching [of the sixth patriarch] in detail is generally accessible to-day; all those who talk at all about Zen find their source of information in Ts‘ao-ch‘i.”f103

After Hui-nêng Zen was split up into several schools, two of which have survived even down to this day, in China as well as in Japan. The one represented by Hsing-szŭ, of Ch‘ing-yüan, (died 740), continues now as the Soto (Ts‘ao-tung) school of Zen, and the other coming down the line of Huai-jang, of Nan-yüeh (677–744),[4.66] is now represented by the Rinzai (Lin-chi) school. Though much modified in various aspects, the principle and spirit of Zen Buddhism is still alive as it was in the days of the sixth patriarch, and as one of the great spiritual heritages of the East it is still wielding its unique influence especially among the cultured people in Japan.